Sunday, June 20, 2010

Polo Bike

What drew my eye to this bike is the front wheel disks. Unlike a true Aero disk, I'm sure that these home-made ones cause a lot of turbulence, and I bet they make a lot of noise too- but they look cool.

After I got a bit closer, I realized that this was probably a track bike onto which someone had grafted a rear derailleur and turned effectively into a 5 speed. Anyone with more knowledge of such things have any idea? It looks a bit like a grafted solution to me, but I'm not an expert. It didn't have a front derailleur, although it did have double front chainrings (I'm guessing it was cheaper/ easier just to abandon one chainring).

From the spoke card and multiple stickers, I gather that this rider is an avid bike polo fan. I thought that was generally a fixed gear thing. Anyone know if this kind of modification is common?

Total polo bike. It's a mountain bike that has been converted to a single speed by removing the shifters and front derailleur and locking the limit screws on the rear derailleur, which is still required to tension the chain in the vertical dropouts. The disc is to keep balls out of the spokes, and a lot of polo players find it easier to not ride fixed.